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Hard Rain
Hard Rain is a campaign in Left 4 Dead 2. Hard Rain takes place after Swamp Fever and is set in the riverside town of Ducatel, Mississippi. At the start of the campaign, Virgil drops off the Survivors, with a mission to find and bring back gas for his boat. They must travel through the old witch infested sugar mill of the Ducatel sugar company and the company sugar-cane fields to reach "Ducatel Diesel". Once they have the diesel, it starts pouring down rain, forcing them to travel back to the dock in knee deep water while carrying the gas canisters on their backs. When they finally reach the docks to signal Virgil, they climb to the roof of a nearby Burger Tank to turn on the sign, using it as a signal. This campaign's Uncommon Common are the Worker Infected, which can take more damage and are not attracted to Pipe bombs. Below is a complete list of video walkthroughs of the 5 levels: #The Milltown #The Sugar Mill #Mill Escape #Return To Town #Town Escape Please know that the gameplay videos are on each campaign's info page not on each map page. Behind the Scenes *In early development of the campaign, the design was to have the Survivors travel much further than Burger Tank, which is very close, to get weapons. It was discovered that players often faltered before retrieving weapons in time. *According to Chet Faliszek at EuroGamer Expo London, early builds of the campaign had the players turn on the lights of houses and other areas on the way to the gas station so that they will be lit on the way back, but players found this to be a menial task, and so the idea was scrapped. The lights turn on automatically now. Notes * This campaign contains a new weather gameplay mechanic. Lightning flashes signal that a downpour is coming, which will summon a horde.New weather effects are added, and the chainsaw can be seen from 1:57 - 2:45. The storm mechanic is apparently to compensate for having only one crescendo event in the entire campaign, save for the finale. http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/left4dead2/video/6237479?hd=1 * In this campaign's poster Rochelle holds a scoped sub-machine gun, most likely a MP5 Navy. This weapon is also in most Left 4 Dead posters. * The name could be a reference to the film Hard Rain, which involved a town dealing with a flood. * This is the first campaign in which the Survivor's loss of equipment during the introduction is explained. * This is the only campaign to reuse the same levels, as they must go from the dock to the gas station, and then back to the dock. The only difference is the levels that are replayed are flooded by the rain from the first chapter, which eventually grows into a hurricane. * There is a sugar mill containing many Wandering Witches. The achievement "Sob Story" can be earned by crossing the Sugar Mill without killing any witches. * A Burger Tank restaurant, like the one in The Sewer, is seen in Hard Rain. * The Dobro Riff heard in Hard Rain's theme is used in the Zombie Survival Guide Left 4 Dead 2 trailer. * Hard Rain's music. * There is a glitch in the first map of this campaign, right after you find out there's no gas. After you climb over the trailer, the house on the left is actually a saferoom for when you come back. So the bots actually grab supplies through the wall, such as a first aid kit, or a weapon. (Depending on that bots preference) You can exploit this by pressing "Take a break" to let an AI take over your character and grab supplies through that wall. *When a downpour comes, your visibility is greatly reduced and it seems that, depending on your volume setting, chat with other players can get drowned out by the rain. The downpour also causes a flood, which can cover up something nasty, like a Witch. The only way to tell if the Witch is hidden is to look for the tip of her head. *On the loading screen, you can see Bill's arm from the Death Toll poster just to the left of this poster. *When lightning hits, sometimes you can hear something that sounds like a Witch screaming. However it could be the wind whistling. *If looking at the maps' length, Hard Rain is the shortest campaign of Left 4 Dead 2, as its only two levels are not very big, though their flooded versions take much more time to fight through them. *Hard Rain seems to have the fewest Crescendo Events in the game, having only the elevator in the Sugar Mill, and the finale. However, this is compensated for by countless storms, calling up a horde, as well as the huge number of Witches. *Interestingly, a horde may not come when a storm comes, but this is an extremely rare occurrence. *Hard Rain is the only campaign in either one of the two games to have altered models of the Survivors i.e. the gas cans strapped to their backs. **Due to the gas cans, first aid kits are not visible on the Survivors, and guns strapped to their backs go right through the can. *Hard Rain is the only campaign where the Uncommon Common Infected spawn in every chapter. *It's also the only campaign where Survivors don't call out Uncommon Common Infected upon seeing them. *The fact that a large portion of the campaign is set in a sugar mill may be a reference to the 1932 film 'White Zombie', which is largely regarded as the first feature length zombie movie and features zombies (zombies based on voodoo rather than undeath or infection) being forced to work in a sugar mill. *Even though there is a hurricane at the finale, the water at the rescue point stays calm. *The campaign's tagline "Come Hell and High Water" is a reference to the popular phrase "Come Hell or High Water". *''"Come Hell or High Water"'' is also a live performance CD and DVD by the hard rock group Deep Purple. *The phrase "Come Hell and High Water" may also be a reference to the song 40-1 by the power metal band Sabaton, which also features the line. *When Nick asks how they are going to signal Virgil, Ellis will respond with "Oh, there's flares in the gun bag". Ironically, there was originally a flaregun in the game, but it was scrapped. *The safe room doors that are used in the beginning of the Sugar Mill and the end of Mill Escape are swapped. When you start in the beginning of the Sugar Mill, the entrance door that has Dead End labeled somehow becomes the Exit door when you return to the safe room in the end of Mill Escape, whereas the Exit door in the start of Sugar Mill becomes the entrance door in Mill Escape. This was most likely an oversight or a level design tactic to help prevent confusion. *Since the Survivors have to go through the same areas twice, the game encourages players to leave some items behind on the return trip since anything that is taken will not respawn on the way back. However, two First Aid Kits will always respawn if taken from the cabinets in the safe rooms and inside the Burger Tank. This was done to prevent players from being unable to complete the campaign if the whole team is severely injured and have nothing to heal with. It is recommended that you take the two first aid kits out of the healing station because they will always respawn on the way back, giving them four health kits on the way back. *The items on the way back will be the exact same ones as when you came (unless you took them). *This also means that laser sights will stay in the same place, so if you lose your laser sighted weapon sometime between. Go back to the place you found them. However, this does not apply to the incendiary and explosive weapon upgrades that have been deployed and not fully used. *This is the only campaign in both games that has a safe room with only one door (end of The Sugar Mill and the start of Mill Escape). *At the bottom of the poster for this campaign it says "Based on the novel by: Edmund Ducatel". "Ducatel" just so happens to be the name of the Sugar Mill and the brand of diesel collected in this campaign. In fact, canon states that the town's name is Ducatel, Mississippi. *Intrestingly, the fourth chapter of Hard Rain includes all the nessessary objects for the finale. The burger tank is still there, (Seen via noclip) with all the supplies. When the maps entities are searched, there are, "camera_outro" entities and several others like that. It's possible that Valve once had Hard Rain as a four chapter campaign, but then decided to split the fourth or it could possibly be the memory of what supplies were kept at the Burger Tank as supplies taken from the restaurant on the first chapter will not appear on the final chapter. References Category:Left 4 Dead 2 Category:Hard Rain Category:Campaigns